


You can only work with what you get

by Dontknowmyownname



Category: Beetlejuice - All Media Types, Beetlejuice - Perfect/Brown & King
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-14
Updated: 2021-01-25
Packaged: 2021-03-11 22:42:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28750158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dontknowmyownname/pseuds/Dontknowmyownname
Summary: Belladonna Deetz is Lydia´s older sister.  After getting divorced she has chosen to go back to her family house, that is apparently shared with some ghost couple, and get some help to raise her child.Adam and Barbara are cool and really helpful, it´s nice to have her sister and father close again and Delia is not as annoying as Lydia said she would be.The only problem is Beetlejuice, who has made his goal to get her out of the house. She wished she knew why.
Relationships: Adam Maitland/Barbara Maitland, Beetlejuice (Beetlejuice)/Original Character(s), Beetlejuice (Beetlejuice)/Original Female Character(s), Charles Deetz/Delia Deetz
Comments: 3
Kudos: 7





	1. God, I hope you’re ready for a show about death!

**Author's Note:**

> Just as a warning, English is not my first language and this is my first fic, so please if you find something wrong correct me. Also, if anyone wants the fic in Spanish, tell me and I will upload it.  
> Enjoy!

“… and that’s when she grabbed a chainsaw out of the wardrobe!” Beetlejuice exclaimed passing another picture to Lydia. The teen nodded and glued the last photo into the mural she was making.

The entire floor was covered in pictures of the town, some of them showed the most emblematic places, like the town hall, or the pizza place she and BJ got kicked out after turning the pineapple pizza into snakes, (she laughed as she put that one in the mural, served them right, pineapple didn’t belong in pizza) while other photos where of some weird, abandoned places no one went to anymore, she was especially proud of those ones, she had to climb and old fence and almost got caught by the police a couple times. She also noticed some of the pictures had things in them that didn’t belong, like the picture of the old motel down the road, the letters in the sign read some weird lame joke instead of the motel name, she find it amusing, but she before could comment anything to the ghost who had clearly cause the changes, a loud crash, followed by a string of swears, and a louder “Barbara!” came out of one of the other rooms.

“Come on BJ, let´s put this up and see what’s going on before they set anything on fire”

“Hey! Accidental fires are my job!”

The pair grabbed the mural and walked to the other room. Inside of it, Adam, Barbara and Delia were finishing the decoration of a child bedroom, Adam and Barbara where reorganizing a toy box that had fallen down while Delia was focused on gluing some small crystals on the headboard of the bed. The room itself seemed quite boring by Beetlejuice standards, painted in a soft blue and a frieze with cute little animals, but since the Maitlands where the ones that had decorated the place, he guessed boring was the default option. “Child safe”, they said.

“Hey Lydia, did you finish the decorations?”

“Yeah Adam, just need some help to stick it on the wall” Lydia answered “Ok, so I need you to grab that corner over there and Barbara can you get the other one, BJ and I will put this side of the mural on the wall but you have to make sure is not crocked”

After a few tries the four of them managed to put the mural up, just in time to hear Charles´ car park in the driveway. He exited the drivers set and opened the trunk, getting some bags out of it, a happy smile on his face. He seemed to be chatting with the copilot, but BJ wasn’t able to hear the conversation. Then the copilot door opened, and woman got out, she looked a bit like a grown-up version of Lyds, except for the short hair and the lack of black clothing. She looked around until she found them on the upper floor, thanks to Lydia excitedly waving her hand on the window. And then the woman did something none except one of the room occupants expected. She put her hands around her mouth like a megaphone and screamed.

“Hey Shorty! Ready to lost your only child privileges?!”

“Come up here and fight me you moron!” Lyds screamed back, almost laughing, to her sister Donna.

“Look crow, your auntie wants to get her ass whopped” Donna said while opening the back door and getting a small kid out. “Wanna help mum?”

The kid, who had been asleep the whole trip, nodded groggily. Raising his little fists and punching the air in his mother´s arms. The both of them marched inside the house, not paying attention something that sounded very much like a “here we go again” form Charles. When they reached the hallway Lydia was waiting them in, Donna let her child on the floor.

“Now Alan, Charge!”

The kid then run screaming to Lydia, hands up on a fist until he crashed into his aunt dress with his face. Lyds picked him up laughing.

“Nice to meet you too little terror”

“He is still working on his attack tactic, wait until he realizes he can bite people.”

“Oh my God, is this actually normal Deetz behavior?” Adam said getting out of the room and into the hallway “We thought it was only Lydia”

“Yeah it´s normal, let’s make some introductions by the way. Donna this are Adam and Barbara, the ghost couple I told you about. Adam, Barbara, this is my sister, Belladonna and her kid, Alan.”

Donna shock both ghosts’ hands. Adam seemed quite interested in showing the woman the redecoration they have been doing on the rooms, while Barbara was more interested in getting her hair out of Alan`s hands, who had grab it when she tried to get close to say hi.

“Wow guys, this is amazing” Belladonna said entering the room. Delia was still trying to finish her art, expertly gluing some more gems on the side of the window. When she heard Donna she turned around, gave her two big kisses on her checks, and welcomed her back home. Charles came finally to the room, one bag still in his hand, and told his eldest daughter everything was now on her room.

“I will go an unpack then. Can you guys watch Alan form me please?”

Everyone agreed to keep an eye on the kid while she went to her room and refresh a bit. Alan had managed to open the toy box and was on a mission to find the coolest toy, Lydia his second in command in the expedition.

Donna closed the door on her room and sighed, she was itching for a change of clothes, a warm shower and a big nap. Hearing the ruckus on her son´s room, she decided the two last ones could wait and settled for getting into some more comfortable clothes than her blue jeans and the “chaos mum” t-shirt.

Suddenly, the room got really cold, enough to fog the windows, and the sounds from outside the door got muffled, like she had gotten some earplugs. She reached for the heater, trying to find what was wrong, before realizing she was in the middle of summer. As that thought reached her mind, she felt a cold breath on her shoulder. She turned around, on edge, but there was nothing there, only her wardrobe at the end of the room, one of the doors open. As she went and closed the door, she saw movement in the mirror on the corner of her eye. She got close to the mirror and looked at her reflection, it was only her, completely normal and tired. And then she heard it, right on her ear.

“BUH!”

Belladonna turned around, fist first. She didn’t hear the laughter or the “look at your face” that the man behind her said. She could only hear herself, her scream of surprise, and the loud noise of her fist colliding with Beetlejuice face.


	2. Whatever it takes to make ‘em go crazy

The risk he took was calculated, but man, he was bad at math. Scarring the breather was the plan, get a good laugh seeing Lydia’s hot sister scream in terror, maybe even make her pass out. And it went well, for maybe five seconds. Breaking his nose wasn’t part of the plan, but looking back into it, perhaps he should have expected it. She was cool with the Maitlands, not even a bit freaked out by the undead, and maybe, just maybe, Lydia had warned him this could happen.

“Welp, that´s not the kind of greeting I was looking for, but I´ll take it.”

“Son of a bitch!” Oh, what a pretty mouth she had. “Hasn´t anyone told you to knock before entering a room!”

“Where´s the fun in that?” He said getting up from the floor. She offered him a hand and he took it, making a scene of dusting himself up, even though all the dirt remained in his clothes and his suit was still wrinkled.

“BJ! I told you not to bother her!” Lydia said, opening the room´s door. She looked kinda angry, like that time BJ ate her secret stash of Cheetos and got caught. But when she realized what had happened, the anger disappeared, being replaced with laughter. Lyds has laughing at him, and BJ could feel the embarrassment climbing to his hair.

“Beetlejuice, I assume” Donna said.

“That´s my name babes, don’t you wear it down. Nice punch by the way, wish you could hit me somewhere else.” He said with a wink.

“Dude, gross, she´s my sister!”

“Yeah man, not cool” Donna said, crossing her arms and looking amused. “Isn’t there a rule about not hitting your ex-wife sister?”

“It was a green card thing!” Beetlejuice screamed. If he though Donna was trying to save his from embarrassment first, he was now certain she was only trying to dig his grave deeper. His hair should be completely yellow by now, he knew. “I can’t believe you told her that Lyds”

“Sisters gossip dear” Donna answered while signaling Lydia to exit the room, and following after. “Also, if you were trying to impress me, you got to try harder.”

The Deetz siblings closed the door behind them, leaving Beetlejuice alone in the room. He smiled wickedly. First impressions included, that woman was going to be fun to mess with.

-.-.-.-.-

Once again, he had miscalculated. Not about messing with Belladonna, that had been amazing, but about the reaction it will get from Lydia. She had scared her father and step-mother out of the house before, he thought it would be the same with her sister. Except it wasn’t.

Every time BJ tried to mess with Donna, Lyds will get angry with him. He wasn’t even that bad, Donna didn’t seem to mind it, not even when he turned the chocolate chips into bugs when the sisters were making cookies without him. The eldest Deetz had found out the bugs were still made of chocolate and used them instead, but Lyds had been fuming, insisting that he needed to stop bulling her sister and leave them alone.

And that was another thing Beetlejuice was angry about. Lydia had stopped paying him attention. His BFFFFF no longer had time to scare people with him, or to watch some horribly gory film and point all the nonsense together, because she was always with her sister. For the love of God/Satan! she even chose to spend time drawing with crayons with a 2-year-old instead of being with him. That needed to stop, now. He wanted Lyds back with him. Not matter how nice of an eye candy her sister was, it wasn’t worth it. He needed to get Donna out of the house, and he knew exactly how.

It was a nice afternoon, and Halloween was getting closer. Delia, Charles and Lydia had left the house to buy some decorations, or more exactly, Lydia has left to buy some decorations, and Delia and Charles accompanied her to make sure she didn’t get out of control, they didn’t want another “Skeleton incident” happening. The Maitlands were in the attic, doing whatever the Maitlands did in their free time, and Alan was taking a nap. Belladonna was in her room, cleaning Beetlejuice last disaster, which included one of her old mugs and a couple of books. It´s not like she hated the ghost with the most, but he has started to rub her the wrong way, and if wasn’t because Charles had told her he had already tried, she would have probably called an exorcist.

And then she heard her son scream for her, Alan was not the kind of kid to scream for no reason, and Beetlejuice tricks had been getting worse lately, so she run. She reached Alan´s room and tried to open the door, but the moment she touched the doorknob, it was gone. She tried body slamming the door open but it didn’t move.

“What´s going on?”

The Maitlands, bless their hearts have heard the noises and have come down. Seeing the scene and knowing just how little BJ cared for human safety, they jumped into action, passing through the door and opening it from the inside. Belladonna couldn’t believe her eyes. A giant snake creature, covered in black and white stripes, had her little boy trapped. The Maitlands were trying to help, attempting to catch the creature’s attention. Donna heard them say something about a sandworm and that they fed on ghosts. Donna grabbed the toughest thing at her reach, that ended but being an umbrella she had forgot to put away, and charged at the thing. Thankfully it didn’t give much of a fight and retreated after getting poked it the eye, decreasing is size and leaving the room. Donna saw it crawling downstairs and her blood boiled even more. After calming down Alan and make sure he wasn’t hurt she gave him to the Maitlands and followed the sandworm route, knowing exactly who she would find.

Beetlejuice was on the living room´s couch, having the time of his live, or dead. That had been the greatest scare so far, he was so sure that lady will leave after it that he didn’t even heard her until she slammed the door open. She hit the door so hard some of Delia´s decorations fell off the wall. Beetlejuice turned around ready to piss off the women a little more, only to panic at what he saw. He thought he had seen anger when he disappointed his mother on the netherworld, but this was a whole new level. And if the punishment matched the records, this would cost him at least, an arm.

“WHAT WERE YOU EVEN THINKING ABOUT?!”

“Chill, it wasn’t that bad it was just a joke”

“A joke? You almost feed my child to a snake for a joke”

“It´s a sandworm babe, not a snake. And it only eats ghosts so unless the kid is suddenly dead, it wouldn’t have eaten it.”

“You are kidding me; please tell me you are kidding. You don’t actually realize how fucked up what you just did is”

“Come on, don’t cry about it, my mum did that to me all the time and I´m still here.”

That last commentary seemed to strike something in Donna, and BJ saw the woman´s face go from anger, to disbelief to something else in mere seconds. She ended up sighting and sitting next to BJ on the couch. He had to reposition himself, partially to give her some space, partially because he was still expecting to get hit.

“Why are you doing this?”

“I want you out”

“Why?”

The question got him by surprise and he had to take a couple seconds to actually answer.

“Because you are annoying. You are always in the way, always being everyone´s center of attention. The Maitlands adore you, Charles and Delila are happy to have you home and Lydia is always following you around. And that’s not fair, I´m his BFFFFF. And if you leave, Lyds will pay me attention again.”

“Come on,” She said standing up. “I will make us something to drink, you will apologize to Alan for scaring him and then when Lyds comes back, will talk about this”

“Just like that? You are not going to hit me or punish me. Not even lock me up somewhere for a week?” “

Believe it or not Beetlejuice, some people act like adults. I´m still angry, and all of this could have been easily solved if you had just said something first. But I got the feeling you are not used to that kind of interaction. So no, no punishment, we are going to actually solve this, like the adults we both are.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If anyone wonders about the "Skeleton incident”, Lydia once decorated the house with real human skeletons. It´s a mistery to this day how she managed to get them.
> 
> Thank you to all people who is reading this. And just so you know, don´t expect a regular update pattern. I already have the draft, and I´m doing this as a procrastination of other things, so I can update two chapters the same day, or wait a full week in between them.


	3. I think we’re a perfect fit

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As I was saying, I suck at schedules.  
> Quoting that famous meme: I started making it, had a breakdown, Bon appetite.

Belladonna´s way of problem solving was a first for Beetlejuice. He was used to being hit, screamed at, lock up on a dark room, or even getting kicked out of the place. Sitting on the kitchen table with some hot cocoa and actually talk about what happened was not his usual way to go, so of course he sucked at it. But agreements had been reached and Lydia and even apologized for ignoring him when she got angry. The three of them had developed a way for BJ to spend more time with Lydia without making the teen give up a lot of family time. A part from regaining the usual mischief the two of them did to pass the time, BJ was now also invited into the family activities Lydia and Belladonna did together. Which at the same time ended up becoming a way to terrorize even more the neighbors, as Donna idea of fun was a wicked as her little sister, but with some more years of expertise and perfection, which, let be honest turned BJ on a little bit.

The family activities also included something that BJ was not expecting, babysitting. The youngest Deetz needed supervision, and the ghost with the most had reluctantly become one of the people responsible for it. Thankfully for him the Maitlands did most of the babysitting when Donna wasn’t available, but spending so much time with the sisters meant the kid also spent a lot of time around him. It also meant the kid had started to pick some habits from him, like the time Alan had tried to eat a worm from the garden because he had seen him do it. Lydia stopped him in time, but it made clear that Alan seen him as a role model, so they had a long talk about how he should act around a child.

Now as the Halloween festivities begin so did another important hit in the Deetz-Maitland household: Alan´s third birthday. So, Lydia and Beetlejuice were sent on entertaining duty while the rest of them prepared the birthday, a nice costume party followed by trick-or-treating. Putting the plan in motion they went to the park, the tree of them already on costumes. Lydia had spent the last weeks making herself a really realistic spider costume that creeped out every person they encountered, while BJ had stuck a fake axe into him head and call it a day, with the excuse that he was already creepy. Alan wanted to go as the scariest this he knew of, and after a little bit of convincing, had managed to obtain for BJ himself some of his own clothes. They were a little big for him, but the ghost had managed to make them fit. Donna bought them some green hair spray and now there was a smaller version of BJ running around the town.

“Admit it, you love it” Lydia said sitting on a bench near enough of the playground to keep an eye on her nephew.

“Ok, I will say it, I like the kid” Beetlejuice said letting himself drop near the teen. “Must be the first person that looks up to me, I enjoy the feeling”

“And what about my sister?”

“She is fun to mess with. Why?”

“Don´t play dumb with me, you like her”

“I-um-er. Hey! What’s going on over there?”

The pair got up from the bench as Alan came to them, tears filling his eyes. He explained some older kid and kicked him out of the swing and had laughed at him for his costume. They tried to comfort him and together they went to talk with the other kids. However, as Lydia tried to reprimand them, one of the mothers appeared to defend their actions, saying they were only children and that their quarrel should be solve between them, not involving the adults. As she was saying this BJ bend down and whispered into Alan´s ear, as something slider in between their sleeves. He then grabbed Lydia and apologized to the woman, agreeing that the children should solve their problems without external help. “A valuable lesson” he called it.

“What are you talking about? Those kids are twice his side, what do you expect him to do” Lydia angrily whispered to him, their backs on both the woman and children.

“As I said, teach them a valuable lesson” He answered, just as one of the other kids started screaming. “Not to mess with him, for example.”

After the incident with the sandworm BJ had been showing Alan how to deal with it. The kid had ended up loving the ghost-eating snake and it became his favorite pet. He had even learned how to ride on top of it like he was doing at that moment. At the sight of the creature the rest of the children had started to cry and the woman who had been talking to Lydia shouted them to take the thing away.

“I´m afraid we can´t do that. Children shall solve their quarrels on their own remember?” He snapped his fingers and the ground sifted and trapped the woman´s feet. She tried to set herself free to no avail. While she did that all the kids managed to run away, with nothing else in sight the sandworm turned to her. As the creature got closer, she passed out and fell to the ground. Beetlejuice released her and went to help Alan get down from the sandworm.

“Did you have fun?”

“Yeah! Sandy is so cool!”

“Sure it its kid. Come on let’s go back home and see what your mother is doing.”

Alan didn’t want to walk all the way back home and asked his aunt for a piggyback ride. Halfway there however, Lydia´s back started to hurt from the extra weight, and the kid was moved into Beetlejuice´s shoulders. As they reached the house, they realized an extra car was parked on the sideway. Beetlejuice turned to Lydia for answers but she didn’t recognize the car either. Alan however, did. They entered the house,g the lights of the entrance were off and there was not a single soul in the living room.

“Were is everyone?” Alan asked as Lydia turned the lights on. As on cue everybody jumped from their hiding stop screaming happy birthday as high as they could. All but one person were wearing Halloween costumes. The Maitlands passed trough the kitchen wall dressed up as ghosts, with some old bed sheets on top of them. Charles and Delia jumped from behind the table, the man was wearing a black cape and fake fangs while the redhead had built herself a “sexy zombie” costume that make Beetlejuice double check it was her and not Miss Argentina. Donna had been hiding on the other side of the sofa and as she jumped to hug her kid, the witch hat she was wearing flew of her head and hit Beetlejuice on the face. The other person in the room, the one that wasn’t wearing a costume was a man; medium height and not really thin but also not fat, he had dark hair and brown eyes and was wearing clothes that anyone could find on the nearest shopping mall. He gave the impression of being just a regular dude, a boring one.

“Happy birthday Alan” He said, giving the kid a wrapped present. Alan opened to reveal a box of mega blocks, he politely smiled and said thank you. He showed his present to his mother, who also smiled, but on a bit more forced way, and then traveled the room to show it to his grandfather too. When Donna stopped being on the kid´s line of sight she dropped the smile, and was replaced with a look between angry and annoyed. Beetlejuice could sense the tension between her and the man, and was half expecting Belladonna to either punch or kick him out .

“Let’s blow the candles and eat some cake!” Exclaimed Delia, trying to keep the celebration going. Everyone got around the kid and he made a wish and blew the candles. Then Charles cut the cake and started to give the portions to all of them. While Alan was entertained opening the rest of his presents, the man got near Donna, and either because of blindness or stupidity, started hitting on her. Beetlejuice could not believe his eyes, and for the way Lydia´s face reacted, neither did she. That man had a deathwish, he just didn’t know about it yet.

So, they did as any good friend should, and stopped Donna of getting charged with murder on her son´s birthday. Lydia grabbed her sister by the arm and volunteer them for cleaning duty, making the two of them disappear behind the kitchen´s door. Beetlejuice chose for a not-so-subtle approach and stepped on one of the man´s feet as he tried to follow the women.

“Sup, dude. Having a good time, I see” Beetlejuice said “But is kinda getting a bit late and the way back to your place must take a long time to reach, so maybe you should get started, you know, just to arrive home at a proper hour” The ghost started pushing him towards the door, the man looked like he wanted to say something, but he didn´t let him, and continue talking. “Not like we don´t appreciate your company at all, which I kinda don’t to be honest, but we have things to do and people to scare so. Goodbye!” He reached the man´s car, pushed him inside and, just for good measure, started the engine. The poor idiot was so surprised by BJ´s actions that he just drove away while the ghost flipped him the bird.

Beetlejuice reentered the house and sat on the sofa, watching Alan play with his new toys, unaware of everything that just happened. Charles however, did notice what happened and looked at BJ with what looked like gratitude. A few minutes later, the sisters were once again in the living room. Belladonna looked around and turned to ask her father something, who just pointed to the ghost. The woman then walked to him and let herself fell in the couch.

“Thank you”

“Who was the idiot anyway?” BJ tried to play it cool, but he was actually quite interested on the answer.

“My ex. Alan´s father. I have no idea how he found this place anyways, haven´t talk since the divorce.”

Hold it.” Beetlejuice said changing his position on the sofa to look at her. “You telling me you screw that guy?”

“Don´t remind me…”

“Your standards are low babes.” He chuckled.

“You have no idea” She answered her hands covering her face. She moved them just a little to glance at Beetlejuice, and when she got caught staring, she cleared her throat and added. “So, trick-or-treating is in order. Who´s up for it and who will stay in the house on candy-giving duty?”


End file.
